The invention relates to combining palettes on a computer display, such as the palettes disclosed in commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,528, entitled "Method of Displaying Multiple Sets of Information in the Same Area of a Computer Screen."
As computer programs become more complex, one of the biggest issues that program designers face is making all of a software program's controls easily accessible to users within a user interface. Many software products act on a document, whose content a user creates and edits. A document is typically displayed in a rectangular region of a computer display screen called a document window. A spreadsheet user arranges numbers and titles in a spread-sheet document that acts like a two-dimensional table. A word-processing user edits a document that mimics a sheet of paper. An image software user works on a document that may look like a photograph.
To allow users to create and perform actions on such documents, programmers have used a variety of user interface elements such as menus, dialog boxes and floating palettes. Pull-down menus, such as the one shown in FIG. 15, are typically lists of commands that can be hidden and activated or pulled down with a pointing or cursor control device, such as a mouse or trackball, or a keyboard command. In the example of FIG. 15, a click on command word "View" in the menu at the top of the screen will cause the pull-down menu 2 to appear. These single-word commands take up very little of the screen because the pull-down menu, in its collapsed state, has a very compact form, such as a single command word.
Dialog boxes, such as the one shown in FIG. 16, are interface elements that are typically composed of rectangular regions that appear outside of the document window. While a dialog box is active, action within the document is usually halted while the user is requested to select one or more of a number of options identified within the dialog box. The dialog box is then dismissed and disappears, and the document is updated based upon the selection which the user made from the dialog box.
Floating palettes (or simply "palettes"), unlike dialog boxes, are typically rectangular regions that "float" above or near the document window or even inside it and contain commands or tools that are used in an interactive fashion. As opposed to dialog boxes, floating palettes are "non-modal". This means that, unlike dialog boxes, actions occurring within the document are not halted while the palettes are accessed by the user. Accordingly, floating palettes are most useful for holding tools and commands that a user needs to access interactively at the same time with the document itself. In Adobe Photoshop.TM., for example, floating palettes are used to select colors, document layers or tools, among other things.
Some programs allow the user to switch the floating palettes from visible to invisible when specific menu commands are chosen. Other programs allow a user to selectively orient the palettes either vertically or horizontally on the computer display, as shown in FIG. 17.